Business environment in Kosovo: A view on the key policy implications 12 pages, pdf  Превземи Назад

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IN KOSOVO:
- A view on the key policy implications -
Policy Analysis - No.06/2012

 

Publisher: Group for Legal and Political Studies (GLPS), Kosovo

Date: October 2012

Volume: 12 pages, pdf


Description

Recently, policy makers and multinational organizations have increasingly focused on a sound investment environment as a strategy for economic development. Various reports from international organizations link the need to reform the business environment with attracting foreign investors, the key developments that would smooth the country‘s economic progress and social stability. Strengthening the business environment in Kosovo is a mechanism that would support an increase of foreign direct investments and would accelerate the institutionalization of competitive conditions for both domestic business growth and external businesses‘ investments in Kosovo. Moreover, the development of a more attractive business environment would in turn improve Kosovo‘s attractiveness in the region and for the whole of Europe. However, despite its importance, there has not been any significant improvement in the business environment of Kosovo over the past two years. Numerous shortcomings have been identified by several reports. Being in a fairly early stage of the transition process and also an early stage of state building, Kosovo is encountering severe challenges in creating an enabling business environment. Due to the lack of seriousness and maturity of policy-makers regarding this issue, Kosovo, together with Bosnia-Herzegovina, today ranks as the least attractive business environment in the SEE region. This lack of commitment from policy-makers and unsatisfactory business climate sends negative signals to foreign investors in regard to the possibilities for doing business in Kosovo. Based on the World Bank‘s Doing Business indicators, Kosovo ranked 117th out of 183 countries in both 2011 and 2012, while the indicators for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, protecting investors, and enforcing contracts ranked Kosovo even lower.